Page 20 of Their Little Sugar Plum
And tomorrow—like they said, we’ll figure it out. As I snuggle against Mikayla on one side, and Jonah on the other, I know we have a merry and bright future ahead of us.
9
Austin
I have to slam on the brakes when a red light catches us before I can turn onto Caro.
“Hey, calm down.” Lyle leans back in his seat, eyes half-closed like we’re on a leisurely drive along the coastal highway, and not about to pounce on the most difficult bounty we’ve hunted in our five-year-long partnership.
“Did I read that text right?” I drum my fingers against the steering wheel, staring at the red light, willing it to change. “Did she really say, Come and get me at Low Vice…Daddies?”
Lyle chuckles. “Yep. I guess she’s a brat.”
“She isn’t a brat, she’s a bounty.”
He gives me a look that clearly says, why not both? Then he leans back, tugging his baseball cap down over his eyes.
“Are you napping?” I jam down on the gas just before the light turns green.
“Trying to.”
I grumble under my breath for the remaining time to Low Vice. Some of my ire is directed toward partners who think they can sleep on the job. Some of it is directed toward brats.
Most of it is directed toward brats.
She has no reason to call us Daddies. We haven’t established any sort of power play agreement, we haven’t even met in person.
Yet my hand already twitches, eager with the idea of spanking her naughty ass.
We reach the Low Vice parking lot. It’s hidden behind the building so that the vanilla Club Vice patrons don’t accidentally stumble across it. Low Vice is the kinky side of Vice, and one of San Esteban’s best-kept secrets.
We get out of the car. I slam my door shut. “How did she know?”
“Know that we’re daddydoms?” He shrugs. “Who cares? She knows, so what are we going to do about it?”
I don’t fucking know, so I say nothing.
Lyle puts on a rare burst of energy and hurries to the door. We’ve both been dragging since late last night, constantly searching for Ariel and following leads to dead-ends. But stick him in the Low Vice parking lot and he perks up like a dog hearing the word “walkies.”
We get to the door, where a tall bouncer named Tag waits.
He gives us a low whistle. “You two look…different.”
I can imagine. We’re still in our Ironwood gear—black pants, black t-shirts. We usually dress nicer for Low Vice. At least, our clothes would be clean.
“Yeah. Rough couple of days. We just need to relax for a bit.” I don’t want to tell him we’re on the job. He probably wouldn’t like the idea that we’re here looking for a bounty, and I don’t want to cause trouble for him or for the club. So we’ll do this quiet.
“Well, have fun.” He opens the door to let us through.
The entire place is lit by Christmas lights which reflect off the black walls. It’s fairly crowded, too. I thought it might be quieter on Christmas, but nope. Seems like a good number of people are eager to shed the stress of the season by getting their freak on. Two men sit in a booth, their hands under the table and expressions of bliss on their faces. A woman in a red dress, thigh-high red boots, and a Santa hat leads a man and a woman around, leashes attached to their collars. Her subs are wearing Christmas elf ears and forest-green, pleather underwear.
No time to enjoy the view; I need to find our bounty. I pull up my mental image of Ariel Capulet, taken from the file we were given a week ago. Blond hair, green eyes. Five-foot-six, with a curvy body I couldn’t help but salivate over.
I wonder what she looks like in fetwear.
She’s a job, though. A bounty. A mark. We have to bring her in, not ogle her in the city’s number one kinkster haven.
Only loud enough for Lyle to hear, I mutter, “Where the fucking fuck is that little brat? I swear to fuck, I’m going to?—”
